teebone110's aquastyle led build

[teebone110]

Finally by the end of weekend I was able to cut, glue, solder, and wire things up.

These light look "AMAZING!"  The corals really "pop" and can't beleive what a significant improvement they make. I really like the added  "shimmer" effect too.

I went with two 18 led strips, one strip has 18 royal blues, the second, has 14 royal blues and 4 430 ultra violet. The 430s give a nice effect.

I actually think that the second strip might not be necessary, so it may be for sale in the very near future

Thanks to Blob, for making this order happen and to Phi for hooking me up with the heatsinks.

Because there are so many buildthreads, I didn't want to be redundant.

..where the magic happens....

...a pic of a strip resting upside down on top of my tank....

I will post more pics soon, when I get a chance to pull out a better camera.

BTW, these things run pretty warm at full power, not too bad when dialed down. Gonna grab a fan when things get permanently mounted inside my canopy.

 

[Zakk]

The shimmer blew me away at first too, WAY better than MH shimmer.

Are you doing almost all blues?  What are you doing for white light?

 

[TORX]

Like my thread said. These lights are a must see. You get an amazing shimmer with these LEDs. Hope you enjoy them like I do.

 

[teebone110]

The shimmer blew me away at first too, WAY better than MH shimmer.

Are you doing almost all blues?  What are you doing for white light?

I have 6 x 54watt T5s so the LEDs are just for actinic supplementation. I might make the jump to 100% LEDs down the road. I have been very happy with my T5s and am getting really good growth, so I don't want to mess things up at the moment.

 

[teebone110]

Like my thread said. These lights are a must see. You get an amazing shimmer with these LEDs. Hope you enjoy them like I do.

8)

 

[Darryl_V]

The shimmer blew me away at first too, WAY better than MH shimmer.

Are you doing almost all blues?  What are you doing for white light?

I have to disagree with this statement.  The multipoint source  of LED gives TOO much rapid shimmer and with optics you have to be careful of spotlighting.

I personally like the shimmer of my MH better.....but too each their own.

 

[Darryl_V]

any optics T-bone?

 

[teebone110]

any optics T-bone?

I haven't put the optics on my leds yet. I think we got the 60s, so I will be interested to see the difference. They will eventually be mounted about 10-12 inches above the water line.

 

[Krazykarl]

[quote author=Zakk link=topic=1726.msg12804#msg12804 date=1323671408]
The shimmer blew me away at first too, WAY better than MH shimmer.

Are you doing almost all blues?  What are you doing for white light?

I have to disagree with this statement.  The multipoint source  of LED gives TOO much rapid shimmer and with optics you have to be careful of spotlighting.

I personally like the shimmer of my MH better.....but too each their own.
[/quote]


I tend to agree. The shimmer is nice but I almost seizure with the amount of shimmering from LEDs. Halides I a little more subtle.  However to someone who never had halides and is stuck with t5s, the shimmer is a nice addition.

 

[Zakk]

[quote author=Zakk link=topic=1726.msg12804#msg12804 date=1323671408]
The shimmer blew me away at first too, WAY better than MH shimmer.

Are you doing almost all blues?  What are you doing for white light?

I have to disagree with this statement.  The multipoint source  of LED gives TOO much rapid shimmer and with optics you have to be careful of spotlighting.

I personally like the shimmer of my MH better.....but too each their own.
[/quote]

I think that someday you're going to make the switch to LEd (I figure everyone will sooner or later) and you may rethink that statement.  I have had both, and LED shimmer is more pronounced, and I think closer to what you get on a real reef on a sunny day.  I mean, real shimmer is unreal on a day the waves are going over and the sun is beating down.  Don't get me wrong, I liked MH shimmer too, but there would be no going back for me.

The biggest difference for me so far has been no 'grow cycles' I used to have years ago.  I think I would leave the bulbs too long, and when things just stopped showing new growth I would swap bulbs and everything would start up again.  My fault, but still.  I'm ~5 months in with these and I don't see any falloff in growth, if anything everything has taken off now that I have my voltages turned back. Imagine dimming a MH to get more growth?

 

[Blob-79]

looks good teebone.

darryl runs both metal halide and LED's for the record

 

[Krazykarl]

I also run metal halide and LEDs.  I prefer the shimmer from my halides as stated in my earlier post. 

 

[Zakk]

Hmm, well it's always what looks good for the person looking at it

I do use lenses, I wonder if that makes a difference, I don't know...maybe it's my love of little blinky lights that's getting involved too!  8)

 

[teebone110]

I had a chance to mount my two LED strips into my canopy over this past weekend. They are mounted directley in between my T5s. They are not really that noticeable when all T5s are on, but work nicely on their own or running with my Blue plus and Purlple Plus bulbs.


A special shout out to Blob, Neo and Phi for the instruction and help. I thik I have everything figured out and working properly.

Here is a pick from the side mounted on the board I have my T5s attached to:

Another side view..

Installed inside my canopy...

..and fired up...

when I get a chance I will post a few FTSs

 

[Blob-79]

looks good teebone

 

[TORX]

Very nicely intergrated in the other fixture.